Why are goalkeepers so crap? (mine offcours, not the AI)

[Rashidi]

6 hours ago, The unknown said:

so you are saying that is is my tactics fault, that the AI so often just need to hit the goal to score ?

A raw xG score is not helpful when trying to determine if a tactic is good enough. The xG match story is better because it visually depicts each attempt.  A good chance is usually >0.2.

The raw xG will include headers too and these are also typically low xG.

You could also look at clear cut chances because these are all high xG chances. I have a tactic that was able to create 3cccs per game on average for a 4 game stretch. That tells me my system is very good with the right kind of players but struggles when I use my second stringers. They get into the same positions but fail to find the back of the net.  Since I play a system which typically pushes through the middle I am also vulnerable through the middle when I lose the ball in transition, thereby giving away easy chances when I use sub standard players.

There are plenty of tools in the game that can help you understand your tactical system. If you can learn how to assess your tactics ability to create easy goal scoring chances this game will become a breeze. 

[The unknown]

 

The above is WAY to commen in the game. There is diffently something about this thing, that is just being ignored, or rubbed off of a "tactical error" that i let the AI have a shot on target.

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by The unknown

[GreenTriangle]

Let's take two cases :

- case 1 : ten relatively small chances, i.e. 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1=> xG total : 1.0

- case 2 : only three higher chances, i.e. 0.3 + 0.3 + 0.4 => xG total : 1.0, identical

The probability of not scoring / conceding ANY goal :

- case 1: 34.8% (7 of every 20 games)

- case 2: 29.4% (6 of every 20 games)

The probability of scoring / conceding ONE goal :

- case 1: 38.7% (8 of every 20 games)

- case 2: 44.8% (9 of every 20 games)

The probability of scoring / conceding TWO goals :

- case 1: 19.4% (2 of every 10 games)

- case 2: 22.2% (2 of every 9 games)

The probability of scoring / conceding THREE goals :

- case 1: 5.7% (1 of every 18 games)

- case 2: 3.6% (1 of every 27 games)

The probability of scoring / conceding MORE than three goals :

- case 1: 1.4% (1 of every 71 games)

- case 2 : 0

[XaW]

I just had this game happen.

Infuriating, huh? The only difference here is that I won this match. So yes, it can go both ways.

[The unknown]

On 21/03/2023 at 18:23, XaW said:

I just had this game happen.

Infuriating, huh? The only difference here is that I won this match. So yes, it can go both ways.

oooh i see, now i can se that is it not a problem anymore because you showed me one example where you won a game with 6 shots on target. Now i now the the 20-30 other matches where the AI scores as many goals as they have shots on target must be the outliers.

 

thank you

[XaW]

39 minutes ago, The unknown said:

oooh i see, now i can se that is it not a problem anymore because you showed me one example where you won a game with 6 shots on target. Now i now the the 20-30 other matches where the AI scores as many goals as they have shots on target must be the outliers.

thank you

If you experience this every game or just about I'd say your tactic needs a look. Heck, upload it somewhere and I'll have a look myself and see if I can spot the issue.

If it happens occasionally, you got unlucky, if it happens regularly, you are doing something wrong.

[Svenc]

I see these kind of topics have never "evolved". Despite many human managers evidently still outperforming the AI left, right front and center on all accounts on FM20, 22, 23 and 33. Except for one crucial one. Which is winning a few matches despite having fewer/ lesser chances -- which is not gonna happen to that super successful human manager, as it will be exclusively AI that will shut up shop / play on the counter, seeing the human manager team as the big dog to frustrate. You can only ever win with fewer shots if you aim to have fewer shots, Sherlock Obvious. If the human managers would do the same from kick-off in that scenario however, matches would play out like a Western movie shootout, except for nobody ever drawing the gun...




This is one of the reasons why I've stopped playing (the other is that I'm alienated by football these days). Because if the AI were to massively ever improve, the challenge would increase, and "it" would happen MORE oftently. Imagine an AI manager that could "read", as a good human manager can, where that space left to exploit would actually be... and dynamically in-match adjusting its formations/roles/duties and instructions accordingly.

Rage-quit central.

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Svenc

[The unknown]

This is such a big problem. XG er not equal in this game, and never has been, all of these are from the same F----ing season.

 

Lets call it "hit the goal 2 times and you will score at least one goal........ if you are the AI of course"

 

 

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, The unknown said:

Lets call it "hit the goal 2 times and you will score at least one goal........ if you are the AI of course"

Would need to do a deeper dive into the xG story to really see if there wasn't a good chance here or there, but it looks like you're not consistently creating good ones and you're consistently giving away good chances. It isn't the case for every example you posted, but you can see a trend.

Rashidi already went over this earlier. In these examples, there were a few matches where you were very lucky to be able to get a draw out of it and there were matches you should have lost and other matches where you rightfully won. Would need to do a deeper dive into the matches though - the xG story etc.

[enigmatic]

Not sure what the moan is there... they won most of those games, and at least one of them they won by converting xG more efficiently than the opposition so it's the AI that should be moaning about it! The AI, of course, doesn't get to make a topic every time they create chances and yet the OP keeps a clean sheet...

Underlines my theory that the people moaning about this stuff have no understanding of football and just want the flukes to be in their favour every single time though

Edited April 9, 2023 by enigmatic

[andu1]

My typical game of FM.. MY GK is a clown , the AI is spiderman.

Is there any way to find what's the average ratings of how the opposition GK performed against you in a season?

 

[Svenc]

On 09/04/2023 at 16:29, enigmatic said:

Not sure what the moan is there... they won most of those games, and at least one of them they won by converting xG more efficiently than the opposition so it's the AI that should be moaning about it! The AI, of course, doesn't get to make a topic every time they create chances and yet the OP keeps a clean sheet...

Underlines my theory that the people moaning about this stuff have no understanding of football and just want the flukes to be in their favour every single time though

Historically it's also been the human manager being super successful (as usual...), thus his team rising in reputation to the point that every AI manager choses defensive tactics. As would happen to any manager, AI included, from the start were they managing Man City, Bayern, et all.

Thus not only the AI always having fewer shots -- but also the AI teams exclusively ever scoring from few/er shots. That's bound to happen even if the human manager weren't attacking 24/7. Toss a coin for long enough, you may even get a couple streaks... simple laws of probability. It seems some of the same familiar faces still popping in too.  

 

SPOILER: If you can't do that to the AI in particular in matches where the AI is considered massive match favourite, chances are YOU SUCK AT THIS GAME. SPOILER ENDING.  What I said about if the AI were one day actually to become "decent": RAGE QUIT CENTRAL. I don't mind anymore, mind. I actually compare "quitting" football to when I quit smoking. At first, it was pretty hard. Nowadays I'm wondering what the fuss is all about and I'm often actually pretty alienated not merely by players and federations/officials, but fans alike, acting as if a simple (and occasionally fun) game of kicking a ball around indeed WAS a matter of life and death.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Svenc

[XaW]

Another example here. I'm the away team!

[turnip]

I've posted this image before, in other threads, but it never stops being hilarious in these discussions:

This goalkeeper was godly. An impenetrable barrier. A veritable one-man-army of goal-preventing carnage. 

 

Sorry, I lie. This goalkeeper (from a youth-only save) was rubbish. Absolute, unmitigated trash but the best of a completely awful bunch at the time.

As a team, we were also absolute, unmitigated trash; our defense particularly so. As a result, we gave away chances like a Tory minister handing out PPI contracts to their friends. Chances for you, chances for you, chances for you. Soooo many chances.

And so, Mr Soares up there on an entirely different graph from his peers, looked amazing. As others have said, goalkeepers get a bit of a rating boost for making a save, no matter how easy it is. So as the shots rained in - most of them very poor - he kept making the kind of saves I could make, and getting good ratings. Which gave him confidence, which let him save even more shots. And since our team was rubbish, teams played more attacking football against us which meant more shots for Soares to save (and more high-quality chances for our attackers, who were much better than our defenders). 

[HUNT3R]

31 minutes ago, turnip said:

I've posted this image before, in other threads, but it never stops being hilarious in these discussions:

I don't tend to look too much at individual statistics like this, but rather focus more on team statistics and the eye test, but it was interesting looking into mine. My media prediction is 6th, but we narrowly missed out on 2nd place at the end. I used 2 keepers during the season. A 33 yo veteran keeper was used at the start of the season but picked up a ligament injury in October. That opened the path for an 18 yo keeper with a lot of potential to show what he can do. The 33 yo is a 3* player while the 18 yo only a 2* CA. It shows if I look at the stats, though both did well compared to most of the league.

 

Ortega (the 18 yo) played well, so he kept his place for most of the rest of the season as I want him to develop with Vandevoord now 33.

 

[The unknown]

 

Season so far. Seems fair.

 

Nothing to see here

[andu1]

Yeah... exactly what happens in my save. I even got trashed 5-0 in a game where all the shots on target were goals.

Seems to me that the less shots a GK has on his target the more goal he concedes. It's not a coincidence

[HUNT3R]

2 hours ago, The unknown said:

Season so far. Seems fair.

So have you done any digging into why you're only getting about a third of your shots on target? Or why you're giving away very good chances? Or maybe had a look at who your chances are falling to (possibly pointing to a player issue) and whether it was a good chance, which could indicate tactical issues?

You're also still creating poor chances overall, except in the OB and OSFP matches. If you're still using the tactic you posted in T&T, it's a very risky tactic, defensively speaking.

 

[enigmatic]

12 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

So have you done any digging into why you're only getting about a third of your shots on target? Or why you're giving away very good chances? Or maybe had a look at who your chances are falling to (possibly pointing to a player issue) and whether it was a good chance, which could indicate tactical issues?

You're also still creating poor chances overall, except in the OB and OSFP matches. If you're still using the tactic you posted in T&T, it's a very risky tactic, defensively speaking.

 

I'm not sure a child so angered by only scoring 6 goals from their 2.71 xG they've posted it as an example of the game being biased against them about it is capable of doing this sort of analysis  

[bartex55]

There is definitely some kind of rubberbanding in this game. But not in the Human vs AI way. I believe that different mentalities give some kind of buffs/debuffs, especially in the last third, to make the defensive mentality more playable and keep the player more engaged in the game. I'm sure we all remember the discussions about the useless defensive mentality. This has always been true. Defensive mentality made your team look handicapped, because defensive strategy always requires some kind of schemes and micromanagement to make it work (even in real life). The game doesn't offer that. The offensive mentality was much better in this game, because it never relied on some kind of patterns, but rather a simple strategy of mass attack and pressure, against which the AI would have to be much more advanced to cope, and especially to counter it.
They have also nerfed offensive mentality, essentially disabling striker pressing against central defenders. Which led to another problem - CBs effortlessly passing to each other and wasting time against teams like Man City. On the other hand, I have to admit that a proper formation such as 4-2-4 naturally blocks most passing lanes and forces CBs to make mistakes more often than not. The problem is that we've gone from every gegenpress tactic that wins the ball high up the pitch regardless of the quality of the players and opponents, to only a particular tactic that AI coaches don't even use in the game.

Back to the topic. I think that defenders with a lower mentality have buffs to anticipation (quicker reaction) and thus intercept more crosses. Well, you could say that it's simply a matter of defensive approach, and you shouldn't be surprised that teams that sit deeper and have more bodies behind the ball defend better. The thing is, it's not like that, because I noticed it when I tested corner routines and my team with a very attacking mentality looked like conceding every corner. And when I switched to a more defensive mentality, we won a lot more headers. So it's not simply a matter of more bodies in the penalty area or something like that. There is clearly a mentality bias in every individual duel.
And the tactics tests done by the guys on the FM Arena forum confirm this. The best tactics this year are those with an offensive formation, but with a balanced mentality. In previous versions of FM, the best tactics were always those with an attacking or at least positive mentality.

And why does this lead to the defensive mentality outperforming its xG? I believe it's related to that interception of crosses. I have always argued that crossing in this game was too black or white. Either your defender will win a given duel, or you will just concede. There are far too many, too accurate crosses in the game. And to make it even worse, every striker in the game hits the ball from every cross as if they have 20 in the first touch attribute. The game rates this as a relatively low xG, but it's basically execution on the GK every time, like a penalty.
And defenders with a more offensive mentality are much more likely to concede this kind of opportunities.

Edited May 5, 2023 by bartex55

[herne79]

6 hours ago, bartex55 said:

the tactics tests done by the guys on the FM Arena forum confirm this. The best tactics this year are those with an offensive formation, but with a balanced mentality. In previous versions of FM, the best tactics were always those with an attacking or at least positive mentality.

As a counter point - it is very easy (and common) to confuse “best” with “easiest”.

Using a defensive mentality (or any mentality for that matter) to build an effective tactical system has always been valid, regardless of which version of FM is used.  It’s just that certain mentalities (and associated instructions) have tended to be more forgiving to use when building and maintaining a system (ie., “easier”) than others.  That’s why we tend to see lots of certain types of tactics flood into the community which naturally become popular, aka “the best”.

Conversely it also tends to be the reason why people get “FM’d” a lot.

So the “best” tactic is nothing more than the tactic you have fun using compared to the amount of effort you are prepared to put into making and using it.  Defensive, Balanced, Attacking mentalities, low block, mid block, high block, low pressing, heavy pressing, short passing, long ball and so on are all (and always have been) perfectly possible to use and over perform with.

6 hours ago, bartex55 said:

I'm sure we all remember the discussions about the useless defensive mentality. This has always been true.

And there were lots of discussion (even guides written) over in the Tactics forum about how effective the Defensive mentality could be.  Lots posted here for example (one of the pinned threads at the top of the Tactics forum), some several years old.

Anyway sorry for the off topic.

[Wavelberry]

Before the Winter update I played an ultra-defensive mentality because of the changes to risk taking that had been mentioned by Rashidi mostly and found success with it with my riskier passers taking more calculated risks and not hoofing the ball. Since the Winter update this has stopped and you can no longer, in my experience, play good attacking football on that mentality and we seem to have reverted to type from before.

[jeru]

The other thing in play here is headers matter most for morale so if you have small players they lose a lot of headers so perversely have lower match rating which leads to lower morale and poorer performances. It then becomes a vicious circle of defenders making mistakes and the AI scoring from its first shot on target regardless of the XG of the shot. There is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid this as apparently according to SI small players can’t be defenders……… 

[santy001]

4 hours ago, jeru said:

The other thing in play here is headers matter most for morale so if you have small players they lose a lot of headers so perversely have lower match rating which leads to lower morale and poorer performances. It then becomes a vicious circle of defenders making mistakes and the AI scoring from its first shot on target regardless of the XG of the shot. There is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid this as apparently according to SI small players can’t be defenders……… 

Do you have any kind of evidence to back up these kinds of whimsical thoughts? 

[jeru]

1 hour ago, santy001 said:

Do you have any kind of evidence to back up these kinds of whimsical thoughts? 

Errr go look in your game small players perform worse because of the ratings hit of not winning headers. You only have to play a few games to see this. Players with low ratings in a match have low morale and are more likely to make a mistake, Im sorry but this is just fact. 
 

[santy001]

32 minutes ago, jeru said:

Errr go look in your game small players perform worse because of the ratings hit of not winning headers. You only have to play a few games to see this. Players with low ratings in a match have low morale and are more likely to make a mistake, Im sorry but this is just fact. 
 

That's an awful lot of words to say no. 

[jeru]

12 hours ago, santy001 said:

That's an awful lot of words to say no. 

ok smart alec with your snide comments (honestly you mods on here need to learn how to interact with paying SI customers) here you go - of my 8 players currently performing on average over 7.00 rating seven of them are over 6ft the only one who isn't is 5'11 and you can see the relationship to headers won percentage

Edited May 7, 2023 by jeru

[HUNT3R]

14 hours ago, jeru said:

Errr go look in your game small players perform worse

Okay, my top 5 performing players:

I know the header issue exists and what exactly the issue is, but the truth is, as always, somewhere in between the hyperbolic statements. Those two at the top are 5'8" or shorter with a poor (as expected though) headers won percentage, yet they are 2 out of 3 in my squad (and the only outfield players) with an average rating of 7 or more. 

[The unknown]

season so far.

 

Fewest shots against

fewest XG against

 

yet still 0 clean sheets for my keeper.

 

[HUNT3R]

5 minutes ago, The unknown said:

Fewest shots against

 

That's the fewest SoT. That's different to shots, but you do concede around 2/3rds of your shots as SoTs, judging by what you posted.

6 minutes ago, The unknown said:

fewest XG against

 

6 minutes ago, The unknown said:

yet still 0 clean sheets for my keeper.

Which would make your xGA pretty bad and explains the lack of clean sheets.

Genuine question - are you here to moan or to move the discussion forward? You seem to post the same screenshots, showing the same issues, but you're not telling us whether you've changed anything. The tactics you've posted before, give away good chances - you've not shown that you've tried to address that issue.

[santy001]

There is an enormous difference between headers/players height and putting out there is a causal link between missing headers, which is the reason for a lower match rating, whereby a lower match rating is reducing morale and in turn this resulting in the AI scoring their first shot on target. 

[jeru]

3 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

Okay, my top 5 performing players:

I know the header issue exists and what exactly the issue is, but the truth is, as always, somewhere in between the hyperbolic statements. Those two at the top are 5'8" or shorter with a poor (as expected though) headers won percentage, yet they are 2 out of 3 in my squad (and the only outfield players) with an average rating of 7 or more. 

Your example is irrelevant your two players there have 11 goal involvements in 20 appearances and 10 goal involvements in 18 appearances which will obviously boost average ratings considerably. 
 

now show a small full back or defender that’s my point 

[themadsheep2001]

Closing this thread as frankly it's a car crash. When people decide to be even vaguely constructive it might be reopened